LS Re: Rambling on intellect and life


Doug Renselle (renselle@on-net.net)
Thu, 12 Mar 1998 18:11:55 +0100


Hugo and TLS,

Hugo, your words below, to me, show great depth of understanding of the
relationship twixt SOM and MoQ. Your words are clear, well-considered,
and capture the essence of the SOM-compared-to-MoQ juxtaposition.

I have just one comment on detail. You say, near the end, below, and I
quote -

"And SOM is not simply subsumed as a part of MoQ, because SOM arose from
neglect of the presumed subject-object split, diverging because of this,
and there is no ground for this diversion in MoQ or some similar
metaphysics."

Are you saying that SOM is subsumed, but that the subsumption is
complex, not simple? Or are you saying that SOM is essentially not
subsumed in MoQ? Or did I miss a deeper semantic here?

To me, and I infer this in your words, the S-O schism heals through
unification and inversion in the MoQ's four levels of SPoVs. I think
this is what Bo and I both feel and Bo described as 'seamless'
subsumption within MoQ.

Doug Renselle.

Hugo Fjelsted Alroe wrote:
>
> Bo, Doug, List
>
> Bo wrote:
> >> "By being subsumed/demoted within MOQ and still usable within it.."
> >> says Doug. Good, but this can only happen if it becomes an
> >> integrated quality part, and as there are only four value
> dimensions
> >> and their internal moral codes, where is it to be found? I will
> >> hasten to say that I know Pirsig's own
> >> "Inorganic+Organic=Objective/Social+Intellectual=Subjective" (SODV
> >> paper), still I take the liberty to - again - launch the
> >> "SOM-as-Intellect-of-MOQ" (SAIOM) idea again.
>
> Doug R. wrote:
> >As an "...integrated quality part,..." SOM may be found as unified
> >Static Patterns of Value in what MoQ calls Static Quality all of
> which
> >is in/commingles/interpenetrates Dynamic Quality.
> >
> >In legacy SOM, we of TLS know, Aristotelian
> >substance/body/matter/property (the objective) reigns over the
> >insubstantial/mind/immaterial/value (the subjective). We hear the
> >SOMites preach, "Be objective. Your subjectivity is of low utility."
> >
> >We also know in MoQ that what SOM calls the subjective is the most
> >valuable. MoQ takes S-O from SOM, unifies it as four levels of
> SPoVs,
> >inverts the hierarchy from SOM's O over S to MoQ's S over O.
>
> I think it is crucial to get more clear on the SOM-MoQ relationship,
> and
> here follows some reflections on the latest contributions from Bo and
> Doug.
>
> Bo poses the question: Where is SOM to be found in MoQ? But this is
> not the
> right question, I think. Subject Object Metaphysics is Pirsigs term
> for the
> traditional frame of thinking, which takes 'the subject-object divide'
> as
> an unquestionable foundation. MoQ moves byond that, by putting this
> divide
> into question. There are two main views available within SOM.
> One is 'the view from without', or 'the view from nowhere' - the idea
> that
> the observer is somewhere outside of what is observed, and the idea
> that
> all that can known for certain is that, which can be viewed from
> without.
> (The observer which is implied in this view, is usually neglected
> precisely
> because it is outside, it is idealized away by the combination of a
> subject-object divide and the idea that the knowable, the 'objective
> reality' is all that matters.)
> The other main view is 'the view from within', or 'the blind subject'
> - the
> idea that the observed is always part of the observer, and that all
> that
> can be known is this view from within, the subjects view of it self.
> This is of course, as is also Pirsigs explication, a huge
> simplification.
> Logical empiricism, or positivism, for instance, combines a strong
> empiricism with a focus on the 'objective', it may seen as a sort of
> 'collective subject' view, stating that we can know no thing beyond
> our
> experience, but also that we can have 'objective knowledge'. There has
> been
> all sorts of efforts towards avoiding the bad implications of the
> hidden
> SOM presumption, making the philosophical landscape a lot more
> complicated
> than can be handled in one book, let alone in a few emails. But in
> order to
> address the really fundamental questions, such a coarse explication
> can be
> necessary; - in the long run, however, a more detailed analysis will
> be
> needed. Here I am concerned with the fundamental question of the
> relation
> between SOM and MoQ.
>
> Both oppositions above are logically strong, within their own
> presumptions.
> Pirsig's genius (and it was a stroke of genius, what ever predecessors
> there may have been) was to see that the presumptions were common for
> these
> two opposites . What is presumed, metaphysically presumed, that is,
> unquestionable from within these stances, is the subject-object split.
> (And
> this is where we have to be very careful and thorough.) The
> subject-object
> split is not something which is *part* of SOM, - it is *presumed* by
> SOM,
> it is the very foundation upon which SOM is build; but not a *known*
> foundation, not something which can be looked upon and criticised
> within
> SOM. And this is the only justification for Pirsig to attack 'SOM' as
> one
> common position, - that it rests on a common foundation. Those who
> cannot
> see that, do not feel as part of one 'SOM'-position, and they are
> right,
> there is no recognized such position. No one could hold the
> 'SOM'-position,
> because to see it as a unity one has to be aware of the common
> presumption,
> and being aware of the common presumption, one is already halfway into
> MoQ
> or some similar larger metaphysical frame. This is what these
> philosophers,
> whom we have seen as predecessors or relatives of Pirsig, have in
> common,
> they have sensed, and explicated more or less, a larger metaphysical
> frame
> which could do more than argue one of the two (big sweeps here)
> oppositions, which could point to a third path that threw light on
> both the
> oppositions as what they were: reductio ad absurdum's of one and the
> same
> wrong presumption, of which they were insufficiently aware.
>
> We should not ridicule this inability to see the metaphysical
> foundation
> The path towards awareness of one self, including ones foundation for
> living, for feeling, and for thinking, is a long and difficult
> journey; and
> it is a journey never ended. We ourselves are only on our way, we have
> not
> and cannot reach no goal, no place of complete awareness, no more than
> there is and end to the mirror views of one mirror in another.
>
> So, in my view MoQ is a step further, beyond SOM, on a path towards
> greater
> awareness; greater intellectual awarenes, - because it is only on the
> intellectual level that we can be aware of our selves, this is indeed
> what
> makes the intellectual level distinct.
>
> What does this mean for the relationship between MoQ and SOM?. SOM is
> not
> the intellectual level of MoQ, they are both intellectual phenomenons,
> both
> specific ways of looking upon our selves and our world. And SOM is not
> simply subsumed as a part of MoQ, because SOM arose from neglect of
> the
> presumed subject-object split, diverging because of this, and there is
> no
> ground for this diversion in MoQ or some similar metaphysics. Both of
> the
> extreme oppositions are no good, as anyone who succeeds in seeing
> their
> metaphysical roots will acknowledge. This does not mean that
> *everything*
> has to be dumped. The oppositions were, and are, extremes, there are
> many
> intermediate positions, even some resembling Pirsig's. And the
> strength of
> any larger metaphysical frame, which makes clear where and how the
> subject-object split is at work, is exactly, that in such a frame we
> can
> *use* the subject-object split as a tool, being aware of what we are
> doing,
> instead of blindly presuming some subject-object split, the workings
> of
> which we are not aware of. *Only* in some frame like MoQ can we use
> the
> subject-object split as a tool, with skill, this could not be done
> within
> SOM.
>
> This is why a MoQ-like metaphysics provides for a new concept of
> objectivity, something which will change science to some degree, and
> our
> view of science to a large degree; and for a new concept of
> subjectivity.
> Subjectivity and objectivity will merge into contextuality. And this
> is why
> our view of truth will change, whether from a relativistic position or
> and
> objectivistic position, these views of truth merging into a
> complementary
> view of truth.
> The complementary view of truth is a truth which is contextual, and by
> being contextual it leaves room for the good to rule. It is not
> objectivism, which has no place for the good, and it is not
> relativism,
> which has no place for truth.
>
> Thanks to you both for pursuing this important issue.
>
> Hugo
>
> --
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>
>

-- 
"Now, we daily see what science is doing for us.  This could not be
unless it taught us something about reality; the aim of science is not
things themselves, as the dogmatists in their simplicity imagine, but
the relations between things; outside those relations there is no
reality knowable."

By Henri Poincaré, in 'Science and Hypothesis,' p. xxiv, translated from French in 1905 by J. Larmor, published 1952 by Dover Publications.

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